I was about to say that, but don't think Billy is actually trolling, because Billy is a nationalist and unwitting white supremacist (in the sense that he doesn't respect all of his Latino countrymen kitchen workers spitting in the food at Republican conventions), and I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't know who the fuck Le Pen was.

Billy ButtsexLe Pen is about keeping France French, and I support him wholeheartedly. They deserve to keep their birthright and their national sovereignty, and if that's a horrible thing--having the land your family has held for generations, and being proud of your culture, and not being willing to give it up to please an globalist elite-- then consider me a horrible person. I know all about Le Pen and I support him and every other Frenchman like him.

I have been to France, and I love the French, and I want it to be that way when I visit them again, God bless their souls.

Knuckleswait billy... if he's pro Vichy then how is he for national sovereignty?

Billy ButtsexKnuckles: he just said the occupation wasn't really as bad as it's cracked out to be. And by the way, Holocaust denial in France is against the law, so shouldn't you be, like, supporting the guy for defending free speech or something?

Buttsex, the French right to protecting their land and "Frenchness" ended when they decided to conquer and enslave large swathes of Africa and Asia. Imperialism is the most obvious reason why multiculturalism and pan-nationalism and the United Nations and all that stuff exists in the first place.

The great hypocrisy of the xenophobic nationalists such as Jacques Le Pen is that while they condemn immigrants publicly (to get votes from soft Fascists like Billy) they allow and condone immigrants behind the scenes, because it undercuts the wages of citizens seeking service and craft employment, which makes their contributors very happy. What they don't want is labor rights for immigrants, what they do want is a heavily regulated and large uneducated North African French population that can be deported at will, that do not have any participation in the political process and that do not tax any of their social services. This is exactly what the Republican party desires of Latinos as well. How a person is able to partition their brains in such a way, to completely ignore or acknowledge the fact that their entire economy would collapse if it were not for cheap labor, but to at the same time condemn those who want nothing but a better life for themselves and, much much more importantly, for their families back home, is beyond me.

Billy ButtsexBaleen, may I first let you know that I absolutely love the depth you bring to these conversations. Regardless of whether you hate me, I actually would be sad if you disappeared. This is not a joke.

Second, I'd have to say that although your theory is a nice theory, it's not necessarily true. I mean, I could say the same thing about the Democratic Party wanting to continue giving blacks money to produce out of wedlock so they can subvert the economic rights of the rest of the US population through the extension of welfare programs and affirmative action, but is that completely true? We'll never know. All we can see are the effects, whether they're intended or not.

This doesn't mean that I'm completely interested in disposing of your theory simply because it sounds conspiratorial (after all, anyone who doesn't think that elites get together and make meticulous plans for divvying up wealth is insane), but I honestly think the right is deeply concerned with the maintenance of culture, heritage, and ethnic continuity, because nationalism and identity are not purely postmodern social constructs. They're very much inherited. Call me a romantic, but these causes can actually stand on their own without necessarily being part of a conspiracy, just as social welfare can without being part of the destabilization of a free capitalist system.

No, nationalism and identity are very modernist constructs. National identity is very important for the reasons you have stated. Interestingly the love of nation and its ancient and hallowed traditions was an powerful motivating force for many of the great artists and intellectuals of the early 20th century, who saw in the rubble of WWI hope in the new Fascist movement which sought to repair the pride of European nations by glorifying some distant and wonderful past, where times were pure and the world was mysterious (and art and ideas were intense and important). Thank God they were wrong.

Sadly, or very happily if you choose to value freedom, Frenchness is a fallacy and national identity is a mutating continuum. Regardless of whether or not you like to see things in such a relativistic way, the way we choose to see our histories is largely subjective and highly unconscious. The question is whether or not this lack of awareness is actually hindering the progress of our economy or helping mankind will be debated forever.

And no, I don't think that elite men in Hugo Boss sit around plotting the oppression of the underclasses, as I said there is a disconnect between two rivaling philosophies. Taking you as a example, who's political affiliation has long been the defender of classical liberal ideals of free market capitalism, somehow betrays itself by participating in a philosophy of cultural preservation and xenophobia. The free market that we so love rests on the backs of millions of Americans, many of them not citizens but all of them taxpayers, who do work that was traditionally held by white people with less than a high school education. Now that these white people are either unwilling to do these jobs or unwilling to work for minimum wage, the rich white men in Hugo Boss must be very tricky indeed if they are to both preserve their cultural heritage and national identity while still making large amounts of money.

The right cannot have their cake and eat it too, to paraphrase from another great French supremacist from those wonderful old times .

Billy ButtsexTo respond quickly here (which is unfair, because I think this conversation is important enough to not abandon after minimal discussion), I've got to let you know that although nationalism is in fact a social, malleable construct, kinship is absolutely not. To deny the French any sort of kinship due to an assault on the fallacy of an actual cohesive definition of "Frenchness" and nationalism is completely backward and a little too globalist/postmodernist for my thinking. A Frenchman is different than a Ugandan, and we don't need a working definition of a Frenchman to understand this reality. It simply is, and we shouldn't force the French to give up what's their to be "free" of any sort of "social constructs." Plus, you can't honestly tell me that nationalism was only a response to the rubble of WW1.

I just don't think it's fair to assault nationalism and thusly the French birthright. We're not completely constructed, you know. Our kinship rests in our emotions and genes, and it's natural for a person to want his own people in his own land, doing things their own way. Even the rejection of the colonialism you mentioned earlier is a testament to that.

You also realize that during the 1950's about 15% of the entire population of Algeria was French? Do you think Algerians, who make up a sizable chunk of French immigrants, have anything to say about that? They probably do, and they would probably tell you in French.

glendowerFive stars for this great debate. I agree with Billy that preservation of culture and identity is important, but at the same time, pure nationalism, I think, only leads to ignorance and conflict, as evidenced in the two world wars. Fierce nationalism always seems to coincide with militarism. How come every nationalistic parade, in any country, involves rolling out the artillery? Before WWI, there were arms races between Britain and Germany and Germany was basking in its glory as an emerging major power in Europe. Just before the war, there was the "August madness" where hoards of people in the various countries created a parade-like atmosphere to celebrate the coming conflict. I say fuck all that. Pride in one's nation should be pride in its art, literature, culture, not in its military/political prowess.

Billy ButtsexGlendower, I think that the military extension of ethnic pride is only natural. After all, there's something deep within the human mind that has a need to feel powerful as a result of all the danger other people's existence brings, and that can be achieved collectively through a display of military might. When people see that their group is powerful, it reinforces pride and a feeling of safety, even though it sometimes leads to war. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have ethnic pride without the gun-toting, but we do live on Earth with evil earthlings, and until the day Jesus comes back or we medicate EVERYBODY, we're going to need to have militaries and use them to reinforce the state.

Baleen: it's absolutely not creepy. As I've heard somewhere before, your kinship is directly a result of your genetic makeup and the millions of imprints left on your psyche from those like you. You're less of a Frenchman if you look like an Algerian and have Algerian experiences and practices. Nuff said.

kingarthurI'm just wondering where this debate fits in to a country such as Italy, where a negative birth rate has encouraged them to seek out descendants of Italian emigrants all over the world, who, provided they can prove ancestry, can gain Italian citizenship provided they pay all the associated fees.

Being that there are tons of North Africans in Italy, and that most of them have ethnically Italian ancestry. Not to mention the Ethiopians.

France, in contrast, does not have a negative birth rate.

Also, i'm really tired and got to the debate late so just ignore me anyway.

j lzrd / swift idiotTHIS COMMENT THREAD BUMPED IT TO FIVE STARS AND A FAVORITE SO I CAN COME BACK AND LOOK AT WHAT YOU ALL SAID.

Billy, you are simply a racist, just admit it. How out of touch with the world are you? Honestly, if that's really how you see the world, you're just an asshole. A lot of conservatives do not see the world as you do, so this isn't just some tongue lashing or rant.

I also don't understand how you can say something like that when you are of mixed race. Do you not have an ethnic identity? Do you grasp at this inflated nationalist idea of "WHITE AMERICA" because you have no attachment to your background? I don't see how you can embrace Le Pen while at the same time being an English speaking Hispanic living in the United States. It makes absolutely no sense.

If you want to talk genetics, analyze the average French person's genes. You will find large amounts of Jewish, Turkish, Slavic, Moorish, Anglo, Baltic, and Asiatic backgrounds throughout the population. Your entire argument is based on the fact that French people look WHITE, and you give a very weak and false explanation of genetics and kinship.

French people are of mixed race and cultural background, and North Africans have been a part of French culture for centuries. When I said that WWI was the start of nationalism, of course I didn't mean national identity (even that was pretty new), I meant the form of nationalism that you embrace. WWI was the culmination of centuries of national identity building exerting itself violently into the world. As the global empires were crumbling, immigrants and colonials began to move into the cities to work the bad jobs, and people began to develop forms of national identity that were more of a defense mechanism than anything based on real history. Generations pass and this fallacy is pushed around as truth.

petepspeeches like this work better when delivered with a shred of dignity

Billy ButtsexYou're right. If the Right had has much sense as the Left, they would have had Bono deliver it. Everyone LOVES Bono!